NEW YORK— If there was one lesson from this year's holiday shopping season, it is that many traditional retailers are having to work a lot harder to persuade Americans to open their pocketbooks.

A lot of stores had to discount heavily to eke out a modest increase in sales, likely squeezing profit margins in the process.

Some improvement in the U.S. economy and declines in the jobless rate, plus gains in stock and home prices, are failing to resonate with many Americans whose incomes are struggling to catch up to where they were before the financial crisis.

But to many retail experts and economists there are other less cyclical factors at play. Consumers are spending more. Government figures show monthly personal consumption has risen for seven straight months, with November's outlay marking the fastest increase in five months. But they just are not spending in the shopping malls like they used to.

And that means that, even if the economy picks up significantly, retailers of many products could still struggle.

“We are in a something of an evolutionary process, said Bill Martin, founder of data firm ShopperTrak, which monitors foot traffic in about 60,000 retail stores. Americans are spending more online and becoming more careful about what they buy, he said.

Some of this has been unfolding over a long period, although the changes might be picking up pace.

For example, department stores have found themselves on the wrong end of trends for some time. According to data compiled by Reuters, they now capture just $3.37 of every $100 of U.S. retail spending, the lowest since records began in 1992, when the number was nearly $9.

Some of that is explained by the rise of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other big box discount retailers. But the pace of decline has picked up, with department stores losing about 0.28 percentage points of market share at an annualized rate between 2002 and 2011, compared with 0.22 in the prior 10 years.

The problem is two-fold. The middle class consumers to whom the likes of JC Penney Co. Inc. and Kohl's Corp. cater have struggled with stagnant wages and a payroll tax rise, prompting them to reduce spending on apparel, said Scott Tuhy, a retail analyst at Moody's Investors Service in New York.

People have also gravitated toward spending on services such as travel - airline ticket prices and hotel room rates are up - as well as movie downloads and other content for their TVs, smart phones and tablets. Prices to attend live sports events, theme parks, movies and rock concerts have also been rising.

In addition, increasing healthcare costs have been eating up discretionary income, with many employers seeking higher contributions from their staff.

According to the Commerce Department, spending on services hit an annual rate of $7.1 trillion in November, by far the biggest slice of overall consumption

“There was a day you bought your TV, refrigerator, furniture, everything in a department store, whereas today, it's really just apparel and maybe jewelry,” said Stuart Hoffman, an economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “But as incomes rise over time, people spend more on services - travel, entertainment.”

As data from MasterCard showed last week, it took deep discounts and hefty promotions to spur a 2.3 percent rise in holiday sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 compared with a year earlier. The figures include apparel, jewelry, electronics, luxury goods and home furnishings.

“Given how promotional the season turned out to be, profits are likely to be flat because retailers had to provide quite a lot of discounts to get those sales,” said Moody's Tuhy.

And it's not as if people aren't doing some serious shopping.

A sign advertising new homes is posted at a housing development in Dublin, California.

x

A sign advertising new homes is posted at a housing development in Dublin, California.

U.S. sales of big-ticket items such as autos and home-related goods such as washing machines, as well as purchases in home-improvement stores, surged in 2013, boosting overall retail sales. Homes sales also increased pretty steadily from mid-2012, although a summer spike in mortgage rates cooled things off a bit this fall.

Some of the gains reflected a long-anticipated release of pent-up demand as the economic recovery has gained momentum, but it might also be partly a reflection of changing attitudes, with the focus on more practical purchases.

According to the National Association of Realtors, more than half of home buyers between July 2012 and June 2013 made some sacrifices, such as reducing spending on luxury items, entertainment and clothing.

“Pent-up demand has helped on housing and autos, but consumers are still cautious. Things are getting better, yes, but even if you have a job, things are still tight,” said Sam Bullard, an economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte.

In its 2014 retail industry outlook, Moody's said it expects the auto and home improvement sectors to outperform again in 2014, good news for Home Depot Inc and General Motors Co., whose stocks are up 32 percent and 41 percent, respectively, this year.

It's been a different story with more ordinary purchases.

An Ipsos/Reuters poll released just ahead of the Christmas holiday found consumers plan to spend about a third less this year than last year on items such as jewelry, toys and electronics.

Sluggish sales of toys and packaged foods pushed down sales at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores in the third quarter and prompted the company to forecast disappointing holiday sales results, while Target Corp blamed “constrained” consumer spending for a tepid rise in quarterly sales.

One factor is that the giant TV is much cheaper than it was, and tablets and many of today's laptop and desktop PCs are cheaper than their predecessors of a few years ago, again not helping store sales. Shoppers are also increasingly likely to buy such items online from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.

Participants in Deloitte's 2013 holiday shopping survey for the first time named the Internet as their number one shopping venue, with 68 percent of smart phone users and 63 percent of tablet users planning to use their devices to help them.

As people check out goods online before heading to the store impulse buying can take a hit, said Martin. ShopperTrak data shows mall shoppers visited an average of three to three-and-a-half stores this year, down from four-and-a-half to five in 2007.

The improvement in the economy and gains in asset prices have also clearly not trickled down to large segments of the broader population.

Hiring has picked up, helping to push the jobless rate to a five-year low of 7 percent in November, but some 11 million Americans are still unemployed, and many are earning less than before the recession. When adjusted for inflation, average weekly wages have barely budged since late 2008.

That has made Americans, particularly those in middle- and lower-income brackets, far more discerning when it comes to their spending.

“There's been psychological scarring for people from this recession, much like how some people who lived through the Depression said they were scarred,” said Hoffman. “There are still a lot of people who can't afford to do much, and those who can are holding back.”

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

Video

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

Video

Fifty years ago, lawmakers approved, and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The measure outlawed racial discrimination in voting, giving millions of blacks in many parts of the southern United States federal enforcement of the right to vote. Correspondent Chris Simkins introduces us to some civil rights leaders who were on the front lines in the struggle for voting rights.

Video

Billions of dollars of so-called ‘dirty money’ from the proceeds of crime - especially from Russia - are being laundered through the London property market, according to anti-corruption activists. As Henry Ridgwell reports from the British capital, the government has pledged to crack down on the practice.

Video

Ottawa, Illinois, is the hometown of W.D. Boyce, who founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. In Ottawa, where Scouting remains an important part of the legacy of the community, the end of the organization's ban on openly gay adult leaders was seen as inevitable. VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports.

Video

Artificial limbs, including the most complex of them – the human hand – are getting more life-like and useful due to constant advances in tiny hydraulic, pneumatic and electric motors called actuators. But now, as VOA’s George Putic reports, scientists in Germany say the future of the prosthetic hand may lie not in motors but in wires that can ‘remember’ their shape.

Video

A British pro-democracy group has accused Russia of abusing the global law enforcement agency Interpol by requesting the arrest and extradition of political opponents. A new report by the group notes such requests can mean the accused are unable to travel and are often unable to open bank accounts. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

Video

Talks on a major new trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations are said to be nearing completion in Hawaii. Some trade experts say the "positive atmosphere" at the discussions could mean a deal is within reach, but there is still hard bargaining to be done over many issues and products, including U.S. drugs and Japanese rice. VOA's Jim Randle reports.

Video

Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction. The last such event was caused by an asteroid 66 million years ago. It killed off the dinosaurs and practically everything else. So scientists are in a race against time to classify the estimated 11 million species alive today. So far only 2 million are described by science, and researchers are worried many will disappear before they even have a name. VOA’s Rosanne Skirble reports.

Video

Scientists have long been trying to develop an effective protection and cure for malaria - one of the deadliest diseases that affects people in tropical areas, especially children. As the World Health Organization announces plans to begin clinical trials of a promising new vaccine, scientists in South Africa report that they too are at an important threshold. George Putic reports, they are testing a compound that could be a single-dose cure for malaria.

Video

The latest issue of 'New York' magazine features 35 women who say they were drugged and raped by film and television celebrity Bill Cosby. The women are aged from 44 to 80 and come from different walks of life and races. The magazine interviewed each of them separately, but Zlatica Hoke reports their stories are similar.

Video

The United States is promising not to give up its fight against what Secretary of State John Kerry calls the “scourge” of modern slavery. Officials released the country’s annual human trafficking report Monday – a report that’s being met with some criticism. VOA’s National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin has more from the State Department.

Video

Abandoned more than 50 years ago, the underground streetcar station in Washington D.C.’s historic DuPont Circle district is about to be reborn. The plan calls for turning the spacious underground platforms - once meant to be a transportation hub, - into a unique space for art exhibitions, presentations, concerts and even a film set. Roman Mamonov has more from beneath the streets of the U.S. capital. Joy Wagner narrates his report.

Video

Greece has replaced Italy as the main gateway for migrants into Europe, with more than 100,000 arrivals in the first six months of 2015. Many want to move further into Europe and escape Greece’s economic crisis, but they face widespread dangers on the journey overland through the Balkans. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

Video

After the closure of a major rubbish dump a week ago, the streets of Beirut are filling up with trash. Having failed to draw up a plan B, politicians are struggling to deal with the problem. John Owens has more for VOA from Beirut.

Video

A U.N. climate conference in December aims to produce an ambitious agreement to fight heat-trapping greenhouse gases. But many local governments are not waiting, and have drafted their own climate action plans. That’s the case with Paris — which is getting special attention, since it’s hosting the climate summit. Lisa Bryant takes a look for VOA at the transformation of the French capital into an eco-city.